Spanish Politician's Image Used in Damaging Photograph

This is off the wires right now and is recent news. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has used the photograph of a Spanish lawmaker as part of a digitally enhanced Osama bin Laden picture, angering him. They have subsequently expressed regrets for the procedure. It is the leftist lawmaker, Gaspar Llamazares. He was justifiably angry at the mix-up. Llamazares's grey hair, jaw line and forehead were simply pasted by an FBI technician and no one bothered to cross check it. This was the reason for the goof-up.

Though such news items seem funny and make for nice news snippets, it is also interesting to look at some more serious questions that get thrown up. The FBI is tasked with some of the most important work in the US. If a lower level FBI operative makes such a mistake and no one checks it up, it does show some glaring loopholes in their system, which is something they should try to clean.

An FBI spokesperson also apparently admitted to newspersons that they had taken a picture of Llamazares from Google Images to update the Photofit.

It does sound funny for the people who read the news but it is not at all funny for the person whose picture was used. Such incidents can lead to embarrassment with friendly nations and politicians, something no nation can really afford in the global war on terror.

Doesn't it sound like absolutely shoddy work from one of the world's top agencies? It is something that probably a school boy would do.

To quote Gaspar Llamazares himself, "It's almost like out of a comedy, if it didn't deal with matters as serious as Bin Laden and citizens' security."

A news report stated that the Spanish politician was considering legal action.

But that is something else. The more important question pertains to the kind of security apparatus and the kind of intelligence inputs as also the training of the people involved. One just hopes that most of the people involved are not of the same caliber; else it would be a complete disaster.

Something very shocking and unsettling.

References:

http://edition.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/01/17/osama.photo.fbi/http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article6991299.ece